Does Princeton use the final grades of all classes when calculating their own GPA, or just grades for “academic” ones?
They will see the whole transcript your hs sends. They look at rigor and grades. Nothing says they recalculate anything. That’s UC, some publics and a few privates. Princeton has a very nice explanation on their website. Kids need to dig into what the colleges say.
That said, your electives or some misc courses required by your school (eg, a religion course, personal finance, whatever,) matter much less.
Princeton doesn’t recalculate GPAs to my knowledge. I don’t know of any of the Ivies that do, nor the elites like MIT, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt or JHU. You’re evaluated in the context of your school - your counselor will mention (probably) the top GPA in your class, what classes (AP/Honors) are offered, where you stand in relation to your peers, and from that Pton will know how you’ve used the resources and how academically prepared you are. They’ve likely seen apps from your school before, too, so it’s not like the admissions people are clueless. Just do your best and have faith that it’ll be fine, assuming it’s as or more rigorous than the course load of the top students at your school.
I don’t know. call up a student there. he should know here now
In terms of GPA Princeton isn’t looking for a specific number so they have no need to calculate GPA. Instead they look at all of your high school course work for top academic performance, preparedness in the field of study you intend to pursue, and breadth. The school counsellor report will tell them how you measure up compared to your peers and the difficulty of the courses you chose compared to what is available. Their awareness of different schools tells them where your school measures in terms of quality of applicants.
Essentially they are looking for high performing, well prepared students who are leaders and innovators in one form or another.